The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far.

IIRC Waton's book, written in 1939, is more "theoretical" than historical - my recollection is that it's not very coherent - but he wrote as much against the early Bolsheviks as he did against Stalin. He was dismissive of communism in general as a movement. He saw all these efforts as requiring dictatorships. He probably didn't use the phrase Stalinism - I used it thinking of the time in which he wrote. Again, on memory, Waton identified Nazism and Stalinism, Hitler and Stalin, which is another dubious argument IMO. Please don't make me find this POS and look at it again!

You know, my dear Colonel General, I don't really believe that the Russians will attack at all. It's all an enormous bluff. - Heinrich Himmler to Heinz Guderian, December 1944

Statistical Mechanic wrote:Suggest Madagascar and be done with the {!#%@}.

I read something similar yesterday, and kind of shocked me. Leaving this neonazi's lies about the alleged new Israeli law aside, is it legally OK to say such things? Is it a permitted discourse? I know, first amendment etc, but isn't this incitement to violence?In Europe, words like these are too hard to swallow, I think.

Two last paragraphs, we can see what these scumbags are dreaming and what they are up to:

- This stupid double standard needs to end. Once we remove Jews from our nations this will no longer be a problem. It is time that we look at a way to make this a reality.DNA tests could be used to filter racial Jews from non-Jews. Once that’s done, we could easily begin banning these horrible creatures and enforce these bans with science and technology. All that we need from our people is the political will to do these things.

• Trotsky was hunted down and brutally assassinated in Mexico on Stalin’s orders during the Great Purge; a bad way to reward „the Jews”, who were allegedly behind communism. Stalin would certainly have spared the Jews if he „was paid” by them.

• Lenin died being 53 years old, which left Stalin alone in power.

• Stalin, the man responsible for the majority of atrocities attributed to Communism, was not a Jew, not at all. Stalin studied at a Georgian Orthodox seminary in Tiflis to become a priest (he did not finish though).

Many Jews fell victim to the Great Purges, and there is evidence that Jews were specifically targeted by Stalin, who harbored antisemitic sentiments all his life (main article:Antisemitism and Joseph Stalin). A number of the most prominent victims of the Purges—Trotsky, Zinoviev, and Kamenev, to name a few—were Jewish, and in 1939 Stalin gave Molotov an explicit order to fully purge the ministry of Foreign Affairs of Jews, in anticipation of rapprochement with Nazi Germany.

• the Soviet Union for most of its years was per its own doctrine strongly opposed to Zionism (so called „Jewish nationalism” or „bourgeois nationalism”), especially during the cold war when it called Israel a terrorist and racist state and even spread classic antisemitic conspiracy theories; it only shortly adopted a pro-Zionist policy as it hoped Israel would become an allied communist state – NOT a Jewish one. Not what one would expect from allegedly Jewish-controlled communism.

"In late July 1967, Moscow launched an unprecedented propaganda campaign against Zionism as a "world threat." Defeat [in the Six-Day War] was attributed not to tiny Israel alone, but to an "all-powerful international force."

[…]

the mass media "all over the Soviet Union portrayed the Zionists (i.e. Jews) and Israeli leaders as engaged in a world-wide conspiracy along the lines of the old Protocols of Zion.

[…]

The Israeli government was also referred to as a "terrorist regime" which "has raised terror to the level of state politics."

[…]

"It is in the teachings of Judaism, in the Old Testament, and in the Talmud, that the Israeli militarists find inspiration for their inhuman deeds, racist theories, and expansionist designs..."

• the Soviet Union was a major driving force behind the most infamous UN resolution 3379 which condemned „Zionism as a form of racism” in 1975

• in his late years Stalin openly persecuted Jews and started some purges (see for example the Night of the Murdered Poets and the Doctor’s Plot); it looks like Stalin only supported Jewish factions like the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee and saw a need to camouflage his Antisemitism as long as it was absolutely necessary, i.e. during the war against Nazi Germany. It’s disputed among historians, but some believe there’s enough evidence to show that Stalin already planned the mass deportation of Jews. Stalin would have certainly not have done all this if he „was paid by the Jews”.

• even the so called „Jewish Utopia” in South Siberia – not a very inviting piece of land BTW – which is often named as an example for the alleged Jewishness of the Soviet Union by Antisemites was NOT meant to support genuine Jewish culture:

According to Joseph Stalin's national policy, each [i.e. not exclusively Jews] of the national groups that formed the Soviet Union would receive a territory in which to pursue cultural autonomy in a socialist framework. In that sense, it also responded to two supposed threats to the Soviet state:

- Judaism, which ran counter to official state policy of atheism- Zionism — the advocacy of a Jewish national state in Palestine — which countered Soviet views of nationalism.

The Soviets envisaged setting up a new "Soviet Zion", where a proletarian Jewish culture could be developed. Yiddish, rather than Hebrew, would be the national language, and a new socialist literature and arts would replace religion as the primary expression of culture.

• a truly genuine Jewish culture was strongly discouraged in the Soviet Union; the anti-religious stance of communism did not stop in front of Judaism. Antisemitism thrived after the war. Jewish life actually crippled in the USSR. Today there’s only a very small percentage of mostly secular Jews remaining in Russia (0.16%). Not what one would expect from a „Jewish-Communist conspiracy“.

Sphinx wrote:• a truly genuine Jewish culture was strongly discouraged in the Soviet Union; the anti-religious stance of communism did not stop in front of Judaism. Antisemitism thrived after the war. Jewish life actually crippled in the USSR. Today there’s only a very small percentage of mostly secular Jews remaining in Russia (0.16%). Not what one would expect from a „Jewish-Communist conspiracy“.

Not only that - even the ethnic Jews who escaped the USSR in the 1990s never got over the Soviet- Anti-jewish brainwash. Most of them are still Atheists and at least half of them never really got involved in the Israeli culture, but rather stay in a self-structured Russian cultural ghetto. My family is from Russia, and the fact the both my parents are Jewish is quite a small miracle.

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far.

Another development (described for example by Braham and Stark in their works on Hungary) I've not seen deniers grapple with is that large numbers of Jews fled the eastern and southern European workers' paradises for, mostly, the US and Israel in the late '40s and when they were able to get out after that. (This connects to Sphinx's last bullet point.) Why were so many Jews fleeing the countries they supposedly controlled and which supposedly reflected their Bolshevik values?

You know, my dear Colonel General, I don't really believe that the Russians will attack at all. It's all an enormous bluff. - Heinrich Himmler to Heinz Guderian, December 1944

Sphinx wrote: It’s disputed among historians, but some believe there’s enough evidence to show that Stalin already planned the mass deportation of Jews. Stalin would have certainly not have done all this if he „was paid by the Jews”.

Honestly, the "evidence" for such deportation plans is on par with the "evidence" for the Nazi Jewish soap. About as quirky and rare as it is unreliable.

Sphinx wrote: It’s disputed among historians, but some believe there’s enough evidence to show that Stalin already planned the mass deportation of Jews. Stalin would have certainly not have done all this if he „was paid by the Jews”.

Not a tone of evidence exists, the best evidence that was produced is in the book "Stalins last crime". It published a document talking about the construction of four new concentration camps. Other then this the best we have is Khrushchevs claim that Stalin was planning to, and the insinuation that a written order isn't demanded of.

Sphinx wrote: It’s disputed among historians, but some believe there’s enough evidence to show that Stalin already planned the mass deportation of Jews. Stalin would have certainly not have done all this if he „was paid by the Jews”.

Not a tone of evidence exists, the best evidence that was produced is in the book "Stalins last crime". It published a document talking about the construction of four new concentration camps. Other then this the best we have is Khrushchevs claim that Stalin was planning to, and the insinuation that a written order isn't demanded of.

This aside welcome to the forum.

It's a tad more complicated than that, and involves some lies and forgeries and fake testimonies and rumors likely morphing into false memories, but yes, in the end there is no credible evidence for this, individually or cumulatively.

Shneyer, Pariahs among Pariahs: Soviet-Jewish POWs in German Captivity, 1941-1945 - this is a summary of points made by the author - critiques/comments needed!

pp 86-89 Russian Jews in various parties (Cadets, Right and Left SRs, Mensheviks, Bund, Po'alei Zion); Jews who fought with the Whites (dismissed and ostracized for Denikin's forces); Jews who engaged in violence against Bolsheviks (assassination of chairman of Petrograd Cheka, attempt on Lenin's life)

pp 86, 88 - nevertheless the impact of civil rights for Jews (February Revolution, consolidated by November Revolution) and Bolsheviks' "firm stand against antisemitism" and pogroms - opening of opportunities to Jews - became the "decisive factor attracting Jews to the side of the Soviet regime and to the Red Army"

pp 89-91 Jews in the early Red Army, including Trotsky's role; the establishment of political commissars as means to control former tsarist officers (who by end of 1918 made up 3/4 of command); and institution of blocking unit during civil war - rule of thumb: Jews about 10% of political workers in Red Army (1.7-1.8% of overall population)

p 91-99 Jews in command positions in Red Army during civil war period followed by demobilization

pp 101-102 Jews in military in early 1920s: 2.1% of military personnel; close to 2% of commanders in military; role of education in Jewish attainment in military

pp 103-106 Jews made up 3.9% of armed forces by late 1920s but over 10% of political workers Red Army (at a time when Jews made up 4-5% of the members of the CPSU - 11th and 12th party congresses had 14.5% and 11.3% Jewish delegates - "the Jews were the most politicized of all the ethnic groups in the USSR"

pp 107-109 during the purges, 180 Jews who would have been eligible for general in Red Army perished - new cadres doing political work in military were newcomers to military - elimination of political commissars in 1940 and re-institution on 16 July 1941 - despite purges, by 1939 "a large number of Jews remained in the top party leadership" (19th party congress: 11 Jews, or 15.4%, elected to CC) - by 1939 Jews made up 1.62% of Soviet population and were 1.64% of Red Army personnel (34,525 individuals), including a number of Jews in high command posts

p 110 in 1941 out of a total membership in the CPSU of 3.9 million, there were 176,,884 Jews

p 111 draft instituted in 1939 - by time of Barbarossa there were 120,000 Jews in the Red Army - Jews had highest % of volunteering, many for istreditl'nye units which met with "tragic" fate in early fighting

pp 111-112 up to 500,000 Jews served in Red Army during WWII (Arad says max 470,000)out of total Jewish population of just over 3 million

p 112 Jewish officers numbered 32,000; per Central Archive of Military Defense, mortality rate of Jews in military was 39.6% (vs 25% for Red Army as a whole) (Jewish mortality may be somewhat lower according to recent study by Sverdlov)

pp 113-114 "The high number of Jewish officers was attributable to the fact that the majority of Jews had at least an elementary, if not high school, education, which was the absolute minimum requirement for attending officers' school" - Jews were 2.5% of graduates from military schools and courses in the war period - notwithstanding decline in number of Jews in high command after the purges, there remained over 20 Jewish generals by 22 June 1941

pp 124-125 Jewish political workers and commissars during the war - "discrimination against Jewish political workers began in the fall of 1942" with a decree of 9 October from the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet: as a result, "the majority of Jewish political workers were sent directly to combat units. Some Jewish veterans testified that this took place due to antisemitic attitudes."

pp 127-142 review of Jews receiving combat awards: "From the beginning of the war . . . the regime attempted to minimize the Jews' role in the war and, even, to conceal their heroism" - Mikhoels and Epshtein protest (27 April 1942) of downgrading of Jewish heroism made on behalf of Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee o CC received no reply - Jews received many medals and honors but "Official Soviet publications have tended to falsify information about the participation of Jews in the war" - review of Jews eligible for Hero of Soviet Union who "did not receive this honor" - some cases of Jews who changed names/concealed Jewish identity to get promotions - still, Shneyer cannot agree with Ganglion who argues that by 1942 and especially during 1943 formal restrictions on awards to Jews were put in place: "It is difficult to agree with this. In fact, tens of thousands of Jews were honored precisely from 1943 to 1945" - doubtful that Stalin issued any such order although it was the case that many nominations of Jewish honorees were blocked in Moscow

You know, my dear Colonel General, I don't really believe that the Russians will attack at all. It's all an enormous bluff. - Heinrich Himmler to Heinz Guderian, December 1944

Statistical Mechanic wrote:11th and 12th party congresses had 14.5% and 11.3% Jewish delegates

That is exactly my point. Those numbers, while a clear case of overrepresentation, do not in any way constitute domination or control of the Soviet state.

I hate to use a Canadian example but I feel it is relevant - Sikhs make up 14% of the current Canadian cabinet and only 0.9% of the population, but I have yet to hear anyone claiming that they dominate the government like what is alleged about the intrabellum Soviet state.

Sphinx wrote:• Trotsky was hunted down and brutally assassinated in Mexico on Stalin’s orders during the Great Purge; a bad way to reward „the Jews”, who were allegedly behind communism. Stalin would certainly have spared the Jews if he „was paid” by them.

• Lenin died being 53 years old, which left Stalin alone in power.

• Stalin, the man responsible for the majority of atrocities attributed to Communism, was not a Jew, not at all. Stalin studied at a Georgian Orthodox seminary in Tiflis to become a priest (he did not finish though).

Many Jews fell victim to the Great Purges, and there is evidence that Jews were specifically targeted by Stalin, who harbored antisemitic sentiments all his life (main article:Antisemitism and Joseph Stalin). A number of the most prominent victims of the Purges—Trotsky, Zinoviev, and Kamenev, to name a few—were Jewish, and in 1939 Stalin gave Molotov an explicit order to fully purge the ministry of Foreign Affairs of Jews, in anticipation of rapprochement with Nazi Germany.

• the Soviet Union for most of its years was per its own doctrine strongly opposed to Zionism (so called „Jewish nationalism” or „bourgeois nationalism”), especially during the cold war when it called Israel a terrorist and racist state and even spread classic antisemitic conspiracy theories; it only shortly adopted a pro-Zionist policy as it hoped Israel would become an allied communist state – NOT a Jewish one. Not what one would expect from allegedly Jewish-controlled communism.

"In late July 1967, Moscow launched an unprecedented propaganda campaign against Zionism as a "world threat." Defeat [in the Six-Day War] was attributed not to tiny Israel alone, but to an "all-powerful international force."

[…]

the mass media "all over the Soviet Union portrayed the Zionists (i.e. Jews) and Israeli leaders as engaged in a world-wide conspiracy along the lines of the old Protocols of Zion.

[…]

The Israeli government was also referred to as a "terrorist regime" which "has raised terror to the level of state politics."

[…]

"It is in the teachings of Judaism, in the Old Testament, and in the Talmud, that the Israeli militarists find inspiration for their inhuman deeds, racist theories, and expansionist designs..."

• the Soviet Union was a major driving force behind the most infamous UN resolution 3379 which condemned „Zionism as a form of racism” in 1975

• in his late years Stalin openly persecuted Jews and started some purges (see for example the Night of the Murdered Poets and the Doctor’s Plot); it looks like Stalin only supported Jewish factions like the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee and saw a need to camouflage his Antisemitism as long as it was absolutely necessary, i.e. during the war against Nazi Germany. It’s disputed among historians, but some believe there’s enough evidence to show that Stalin already planned the mass deportation of Jews. Stalin would have certainly not have done all this if he „was paid by the Jews”.

• even the so called „Jewish Utopia” in South Siberia – not a very inviting piece of land BTW – which is often named as an example for the alleged Jewishness of the Soviet Union by Antisemites was NOT meant to support genuine Jewish culture:

According to Joseph Stalin's national policy, each [i.e. not exclusively Jews] of the national groups that formed the Soviet Union would receive a territory in which to pursue cultural autonomy in a socialist framework. In that sense, it also responded to two supposed threats to the Soviet state:

- Judaism, which ran counter to official state policy of atheism- Zionism — the advocacy of a Jewish national state in Palestine — which countered Soviet views of nationalism.

The Soviets envisaged setting up a new "Soviet Zion", where a proletarian Jewish culture could be developed. Yiddish, rather than Hebrew, would be the national language, and a new socialist literature and arts would replace religion as the primary expression of culture.

• a truly genuine Jewish culture was strongly discouraged in the Soviet Union; the anti-religious stance of communism did not stop in front of Judaism. Antisemitism thrived after the war. Jewish life actually crippled in the USSR. Today there’s only a very small percentage of mostly secular Jews remaining in Russia (0.16%). Not what one would expect from a „Jewish-Communist conspiracy“.

As a scholar who had lived in the USSR in the 1980s and a semi-professional interpreter, I helped a number of Jewish refugees from the USSR get settled in the US in the 1990s. The ones I met were unanimous in expressing incredulity that anybody associated Communism with Jews. They made it very clear that Jews had been kept far away from power in the USSR since the death of Stalin. And if Stalin hadn't died in a timely manner, he would himself have pursued them. I recommend everyone who makes this alleged Jewish/Communist connection read Arkday Vaksberg's book Stalin vs. the Jews to see what Stalin had in mind.

"When you are studying any matter, or considering any philosophy, ask yourself only what are the facts and what is the truth that the facts bear out. Never let yourself be diverted, either by what you wish to believe, or by what you think would have beneficent social effects if it were believed. But look only, and solely, at what are the facts."

Shneyer cont'd (I am almost through the background part of this book, relevant to this thread):

- pp 143-144 two leaders of the Polish Bund (Henryk Erich, Victor Alter), recently released from prison under an amnesty (they'd been arrested by NKVD in October 1939), proposed formation of military units composed of US Jews, to support Soviet Union; in December 1941 Erich and Alter were rearrested (Alter was executed, Ehrlich committed suicide in prison)

- pp 145-153 formation and work of Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee and its subordination to Stalin's apparatus: "The JAC was thus, in fact, a propaganda arm of the Central Committee and of the Soviet Secret Services"; "All of the JAC's activities were supervised by Central Committee Secretary Aleksandr Scherbakov, who was responsible for all international propaganda. . . ." - a key issue for the Jewish activists was the raising of Jewish military units - not aligning with Stalin's orientation, this idea went nowhere in the SU, and "We do not know the reactions of any Soviet officials familiar with such proposals at sessions of the Central Committee or the State Defense Committee" - Shneyer also discusses in this context (Stalinist attempts to retain control and general refusal to countenance non-Communist initiatives) Soviet contacts with Weizmann (p 144) and Ben-Gurion (pp 144-145) in which the Soviet ambassador to Britain attempted to utilize Zionist organizations to stimulate support for the war effort from Jews in the US, Britain, and other western countries (not vice versa, as the Judeo-Bolshevik claim would have it)

Sergey_Romanov wrote:Unfortunately Vaksberg promoted the "Jewish deportation" myth, so I wouldn't recommend his books on the topic of Stalin's antisemitism. I would recommend anything by Kostyrchenko though.

Thanks for the correction. I didn't read Vaksberg very critically. It made me aware of the Mikhoels case, which I hadn't heard of before.

"When you are studying any matter, or considering any philosophy, ask yourself only what are the facts and what is the truth that the facts bear out. Never let yourself be diverted, either by what you wish to believe, or by what you think would have beneficent social effects if it were believed. But look only, and solely, at what are the facts."

Great documents about the murder of Mikhoels - the murderers' confessions and Beria's summary report - can be found in Kostyrchenko's Russian document volume on the state antisemitism under Stalin. Also many other great documents on the general topic.

Sergey_Romanov wrote:Great documents about the murder of Mikhoels - the murderers' confessions and Beria's summary report - can be found in Kostyrchenko's Russian document volume on the state antisemitism under Stalin. Also many other great documents on the general topic.

Will look at it. Thanks again.

"When you are studying any matter, or considering any philosophy, ask yourself only what are the facts and what is the truth that the facts bear out. Never let yourself be diverted, either by what you wish to believe, or by what you think would have beneficent social effects if it were believed. But look only, and solely, at what are the facts."

- Shneyer notes that "all of the opposing forces" to some extent took part in pogroms during the civil war, but that in the early '20s "antisemitism declined sharply because of the punitive measures stipulated by Soviet legislation" (which didn't end antisemitism but suppressed it)

- during the '20s and '30s, there were antisemitic reactions to Bolshevik policies, even within the party and Komsomol; Shneyer highlights the following:

1) confiscation of valuables from Orthodox churches in which Jews participated2) renaming of streets "in honor of Jewish revolutionaries"3) "the Jews' active participation in the Cheka reprisals (Shneyer says that from 1935-1938 for example Jews headed about half the Cheka subunits and nearly 8% of all staff members - this prominence, which ended with the purges, was not forgotten)4) by 1927 about 10% of the members of Soviets at all levels were Jews; about 8% of the members of the judiciary; 13% in trade bodies; and 19% in "public organizations" - in other words, Jews had significant and visible institutional presence during this period

- Shneyer quotes at length from two contemporary documents explaining this situation and negative backlash from many Russians:

1) IM Bikerman (a Jewish emigre): "The Russian person had never before seen a Jew in power; he had not seen him as a governor or a policeman, or even as a postal worker. Today the Jews are found in all corners and at all levels of power. . . . The Russian person now sees the Jew as both judge and executioner. . . . It is not surprising that the Russian person, when he compares the past with the present, is convinced that today's regime is a Jewish regime, which is why it is so diabolical; that it exists for the Jews. . . ."2) BD Brutskus (economist): "The appearance of primarily very young Jewish commissars who were completely alien to the population, and, like their Russian comrades, were neither morally nor intellectually prepared to handle those responsibilities. . . . their appearance at the moment when the Soviet regime considered the most crude violence to be a normal administrative method, had a profound impact on the psychology of the masses. . . ."

Shneyer explains the developments to which people reacted as partly the upward mobility of educated Jews who took new posts and roles in the Communist society, which required large numbers of loyal officials, technicians, writers, and other professionals, and partly the result of the party and state taking a firm line against antisemitism.

- The party took note of the antisemitic trends but made at best ineffective efforts to stem them (many books were published opposing antisemitism, for instance, and an interview of Stalin by the JTA)

- Party members and even many Soviet citizens regarded the "crushing in the second half of 1927 of the 'Party opposition' headed by Trotsky, which included many Jews, as a liberation from the 'large representation of Jews in the leadership of the party and country.'"

- Shneyer cites documents with typical antisemitic tropes (Jews won't fight, Jews will betray the Soviet Union during war, Jews have cushy jobs and lives of ease, Jews won't farm or do physical labor, Jews stick together) mixing with newer stereotypes (the party opposition was predominantly Jews, Jews are overeducated, Jews are disloyal to Communism and many leave the Soviet Union) from this period. Here we see antisemitism in the USSR trading in stereotypes some of which overlap with and some of which challenge the Judeo-Bolshevik idea.

- in the purges of 1937-1938 many Jews were affected, starting with Jewish schools, use of Yiddish, and Jewish publishing houses; "The number of Jewish people's commissars . . . declined. After the purges . . . the process of replacing Jews with members of other nationalities, especially Russians, continued." Shneyer says that there is not "precise information" on the number of Jewish victims in the Russification and other repressions of the late '30s.

- in Shyer's view Soviet law and "strict punishment" of antisemitism kept the lid on anti-Jewish manifestations and silenced antisemites but didn't stop them entirely or root out anti-Jewish attitudes and stereotypes, which continued into the war; during the war, especially in German occupied areas, overt antisemitism increased (Shneyer cites "the antisemitic behavior of the local population" during the earliest phases of the war "freed . . . from the fear of the Soviet authorities" as a significant indicator of the persistence of the undercurrents); the Germans used propaganda (more on this later) to instigate antisemitism among people in the Soviet Union and occupied areas

- in 1943, as noted in another thread, "Antisemitism increased noticeably at the front" as the Red Army began to liberate occupied territory and people who "had been living under occupation in an atmosphere of unbridled antisemitic propaganda" were mobilized into the Red Army

You know, my dear Colonel General, I don't really believe that the Russians will attack at all. It's all an enormous bluff. - Heinrich Himmler to Heinz Guderian, December 1944

It struck me how poor and desperate the Jews were at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century (so much for "Jews own everything") in Eastern Europe. But, they were very educated, their level of literacy compared to the gentiles they lived with is astonishing. Most could read and write so they read voraciously and were drawn to many different ideologies. There were the Bundists, the Zionists, the Communists (Bolsheviks and Mensheviks) and an offshoot called Poale Zion that believed in a Socialist Israel (this party later split into left and right-wings).

There was an extreme amount of tension between the younger and older generations. The younger generation grew tired of their circumstances and wanted more, along the way they dropped the religion that their parents held so dear. One young Communist proved his rejection of Judaism by eating a ham sandwich on the tomb of a rabbi during Passover (this is akin to the young Catholic me eating a steak on the grave of a priest on Good Friday).

It's fascinating. Revolutionary Jews fought in Spain (there was a split between Trotskyites and Stalinists) during the Russian Revolution and other places where there was conflict.

Throughout it all there is this sense of betrayal, that they fought for eventually turned against them. Jews suffered during the Great Purge as much as any minority. Jewish Polish Communists felt betrayed when Stalin dissolved their party in 1938.

I'll add more to this later.

“Today I saw one of those places, saw it in all of its horror, all its filth, all its death.”Soldier entering the Ohrdruf Concentration Camp.

Statistical Mechanic wrote:1) confiscation of valuables from Orthodox churches in which Jews participated

I'm not sure to what extent this occurred. The Cheka unit that oversaw the suppression of the Church was headed by an ethnic Russian and staffed entirely by Russians - Lenin made clear that it would make for bad publicity of Jews were seen as behind the persecution of the church.

3) "the Jews' active participation in the Cheka reprisals (Shneyer says that from 1935-1938 for example Jews headed about half the Cheka subunits and nearly 8% of all staff members - this prominence, which ended with the purges, was not forgotten)

They made up roughly 34% of senior officers during the Yagoda years. However, they were far less represented as heads of regional departments than they were as heads of specialist departments. I did these calculations myself from the Memo.Ru website, which has the full membership lists. Jews, from my calculations, made up 18-22% of regional directors, for example, the head of the NKVD in the Stalingrad Oblast.

A Russian poster on AHF made a good point on this matter - The average Russian would have had no idea who the top NKVD men were, their identities were kept secret. They would have known Yagoda, Frisnovsky, Yehzov, and their local NKVD head. They would not know the director of the NKVD Special Department (Israel Leplevsky) or any of the other special departments. So I don't see why any more than the 20% of Russians would see the NKVD as being run by Jews if the physical manifestation of state terror in their oblast was not a Jew.

Additionally, these were self-hating Jews who did not serve Jewish interests. M.I Guy, the Jewish head of the OGPU Economic Section lead a suppression of Jewish merchants in the early 30's.

4) by 1927 about 10% of the members of Soviets at all levels were Jews; about 8% of the members of the judiciary; 13% in trade bodies; and 19% in "public organizations" - in other words, Jews had significant and visible institutional presence during this period

Overrepresentation yes, but not domination. Russians still made up a large majority and were the clear driving force. Latvians were also overrpresented - they made up 75% of the middle management of the Cheka during the Dzrehinsky years (late teens early twenties).

Statistical Mechanic wrote:and partly the result of the party and state taking a firm line against antisemitism.

I dispute this. It really depends on your definition of antisemitism. Hundreds of Synagogues were destroyed of confiscated during the Red Terror. many Rabbis were subjected to show trials. The Jewish religion was forbidden. The Newspaper of "The League of the Militant Godless" frequently published anti-Jewish cartoons that utilized antisemitic imagery.

Statistical Mechanic wrote:1) confiscation of valuables from Orthodox churches in which Jews participated

I'm not sure to what extent this occurred. The Cheka unit that oversaw the suppression of the Church was headed by an ethnic Russian and staffed entirely by Russians - Lenin made clear that it would make for bad publicity of Jews were seen as behind the persecution of the church.

I read about these events decades ago so hell if I know. Shneyer notes "prominent participation of Jews in the requisitioning."

Jeff_36 wrote:

3) "the Jews' active participation in the Cheka reprisals (Shneyer says that from 1935-1938 for example Jews headed about half the Cheka subunits and nearly 8% of all staff members - this prominence, which ended with the purges, was not forgotten)

They made up roughly 34% of senior officers during the Yagoda years. However, they were far less represented as heads of regional departments than they were as heads of specialist departments. I did these calculations myself from the Memo.Ru website, which has the full membership lists. Jews, from my calculations, made up 18-22% of regional directors, for example, the head of the NKVD in the Stalingrad Oblast.

Shneyer cites Kostyrchenko, Tainiaia politika Stalina, p 210. Again, not my area of knowledge. But Shyer's point is that there was Jewish visibility and ordinary people noticed. (pp 294-295)

Jeff_36 wrote:The average Russian would have had no idea who the top NKVD men were, their identities were kept secret. They would have known Yagoda, Frisnovsky, Yehzov, and their local NKVD head. They would not know the director of the NKVD Special Department (Israel Leplevsky) or any of the other special departments. So I don't see why any more than the 20% of Russians would see the NKVD as being run by Jews if the physical manifestation of state terror in their oblast was not a Jew.

I think that's why Shneyer mentions provincial staff. His discussion is about what people were aware of and the threads they wove into their antisemitic views. Anyway, Shneyer says something different - that popular knowledge took account "of the Jews' active participation in the Cheka reprisals," as noted, and "could not forget." (p 295)

Jeff_36 wrote:Additionally, these were self-hating Jews who did not serve Jewish interests.

Shneyer certainly doesn't describe these people as "self-hating"; rather he see them, lie Shneer in his book, as more assimilated than their elders and as successfully upwardly mobile. In any event, this issue too is beside Shneyer's point, which is to give a sense of the sorts of things which antisemites found useful to their claims and arguments.

Jeff_36 wrote:

4) by 1927 about 10% of the members of Soviets at all levels were Jews; about 8% of the members of the judiciary; 13% in trade bodies; and 19% in "public organizations" - in other words, Jews had significant and visible institutional presence during this period

Overrepresentation yes, but not domination.

Not sure where you're going but to be clear: Shneyer is not making any sort of argument that Jews dominated the Soviet government of Communist party. By no means. The entire focus of the section I summarized here is "during the '20s and '30s, there were antisemitic reactions to Bolshevik policies, even within the party and Komsomol," not to advance a thesis of Jewish domination! Sorry if that wasn't clear - I don't see where I implied anything different but . . .

You know, my dear Colonel General, I don't really believe that the Russians will attack at all. It's all an enormous bluff. - Heinrich Himmler to Heinz Guderian, December 1944

Statistical Mechanic wrote:Shneyer cites Kostyrchenko, Tainiaia politika Stalina, p 210. Again, not my area of knowledge. But Shyer's point is that there was Jewish visibility and ordinary people noticed. (pp 294-295)

They made up about 50% of heads of specialist departments and roughly 20% regional directors. The total varied between 31% and 37% I know it was 34% during 1935. They were less common in provincial departments then they were at at specialist departments.

The number of Jewish cadres who headed up specialist departments went down noticeably after Yezhov came to prominence. I can think of examples: The Jewish head of the Counterintelligence department (I cant remember his name - nasty character) was repalced by a Ukranian named N. G Nikolayev-Zhurid. The number at regional departments stayed steady. After Beria took over in '38 the numbers across the board dropped through the floor.

My point was that if you lived in a place like Donetsk or Lenningrad, your oblast director, the only NKVD name you would know, would not be a Jew. These directors outnumbered Jewish ones.

Shneyer certainly doesn't describe these people as "self-hating"; rather he see them, lie Shneer in his book, as more assimilated than their elders and as successfully upwardly mobile.

Yuri Slezkine and Simon Montifore wrote that Jewish apparatchiks in the NKVD were highly deracinated and often actively went against what could be perceived as Jewish interests, i.e they did not spare fellow Jews from repression.

In any event, this issue too is beside Shneyer's point, which is to give a sense of the sorts of things which antisemites found useful to their claims and arguments.

Of course. I'm just adding for the record.

Not sure where you're going but to be clear: Shneyer is not making any sort of argument that Jews dominated the Soviet government of Communist party. By no means.

Obviously. I'm just expressing wonderment as to why the narrative of Jewish domination came about at all if the statistics did not back it up. Sheyer seems to have put together quite the book and I will make sure to add it to my list.

Statistical Mechanic wrote:and partly the result of the party and state taking a firm line against antisemitism.

I dispute this. It really depends on your definition of antisemitism. Hundreds of Synagogues were destroyed of confiscated during the Red Terror. many Rabbis were subjected to show trials. The Jewish religion was forbidden. The Newspaper of "The League of the Militant Godless" frequently published anti-Jewish cartoons that utilized antisemitic imagery.

Not sure what you're disputing.

The bit you quote is about a backlash to Jewish upward mobility during the 1920s - and cites a number of primary sources. It has nothing to do with the events of the 1930s. I put this gloss in sequence and maybe should have included "mid-1920s" specifically to be clearer.

But Shneyer's discussion here is about the '20s, not the show trials. Shneyer cites specific legislation (1927) and references the punishments stipulated. Shneyer describes the '20s as different in this regard from the civil war period and from the '30s - and he sees an antisemitic upswing in the mid- to late '20s when "The majority of Soviet citizens . . . reacted negatively . . . to the Jews' active participation in political and administrative affairs" under the Bolsheviks."

Are you disputing that under the Bolsheviks Jewish participation increased and was more noticeable? That this trend was "enforced" by the Soviet government? That the legislation against "arousing ethnic or religious hostility or strife" was on the books or enforced during the '20s?

The contrast Shneyer is making is between the pre-revolutionary period and the 1920s - with Jewish participation, as Bikerman described, at novel levels. Shneyer does say that throughout this period the intelligentsia became increasingly antisemitic and he cites criticism from activists of Stalin and others for failing to deal with antisemitic manifestations. His aim isn't to paint a rosy picture but rather to explain some of the reactions during the 1920s and then look at shifts in the 1930s, especially 1937-1939. My guess is, however, that he would treat that period too as less black and white than you are above - he keeps stressing the continued high proportion of Jews in leadership positions through the 1930s.

You know, my dear Colonel General, I don't really believe that the Russians will attack at all. It's all an enormous bluff. - Heinrich Himmler to Heinz Guderian, December 1944

Statistical Mechanic wrote:Shneyer cites Kostyrchenko, Tainiaia politika Stalina, p 210. Again, not my area of knowledge. But Shyer's point is that there was Jewish visibility and ordinary people noticed. (pp 294-295)

They made up about 50% of heads of specialist departments and roughly 20% regional directors. The total varied between 31% and 37% I know it was 34% during 1935. They were less common in provincial departments then they were at at specialist departments.

That's what Shneyer says and what I summarized. Not sure what the issue is.

Jeff_36 wrote:The number of Jewish cadres who headed up specialist departments went down noticeably after Yezhov came to prominence.

Shneyer agrees with this. Shneyer wrote that after 1937-1938, despite the purges, "what they [Jews in the NKVD] had done took root in the hearts of people, who could not forget those deeds." Not sure of the issue here either. The data cited by Shneyer are before 1939 and he describes how, despite the change, people didn't forget.

Jeff_36 wrote:My point was that if you lived in a place like Donetsk or Lenningrad, your oblast director, the only NKVD name you would know, would not be a Jew. These directors outnumbered Jewish ones.

Shneyer agrees that Jews were outnumbered but not that they were invisible. That's where he disagrees with you.

Jeff_36 wrote:

Shneyer certainly doesn't describe these people as "self-hating"; rather he see them, lie Shneer in his book, as more assimilated than their elders and as successfully upwardly mobile.

Yuri Slezkine and Simon Montifore wrote that Jewish apparatchiks in the NKVD were highly deracinated and often actively went against what could be perceived as Jewish interests, i.e they did not spare fellow Jews from repression.

Self-hating is a loaded term, which for some reason makes me cringe, as though there's some norm being violated, anyway, as I said, Shneyer was not discussing only NKVD officials but rather a general phenomenon described in what he quoted from Bikerman who discussed Jews in "all corners and . . . all levels of power."

Jeff_36 wrote:

In any event, this issue too is beside Shneyer's point, which is to give a sense of the sorts of things which antisemites found useful to their claims and arguments.

Of course. I'm just adding for the record.

Ah, that wasn't clear . . . seemed to go in a different direction!

You know, my dear Colonel General, I don't really believe that the Russians will attack at all. It's all an enormous bluff. - Heinrich Himmler to Heinz Guderian, December 1944

Statistical Mechanic wrote:Are you disputing that under the Bolsheviks Jewish participation increased and was more noticeable?

Absolutely not.

That this trend was "enforced" by the Soviet government? That the legislation against "arousing ethnic or religious hostility or strife" was on the books or enforced during the '20s?

Again, absolutely not. I have studied this issue extensively and I know a public campaign against antisemitism was mounted by the authorities in the late 1920's following the backlash that Shneyer mentioned.

What I meant by my "disputing" comment was that the Soviets basically criminalized ethnic antisemitism, but engaged actively in religious anti-Jewish rhetoric and actions that were greatly harmful to the older generation of Jews. They basically publicly opposed one form of antisemitisim while engaging in another.

he keeps stressing the continued high proportion of Jews in leadership positions through the 1930s.

As I have noted elsewhere. Jews were continuously overrepresented until 1938 or so in most government bodies. However, their share went down over time before that date - one sees a drop in the mid twenties, a second drop in the early 30's, and a massive drop in the late thirties.

I think I communicated poorly. I in no way disputed Shneyer's findings - on the contrary, I felt the need to add to the discussion by citing statistics of my own to get to the bottom of the issue and I have just ordered his book. I was merely expressing curiosity as to how the Russian backlash that Shneyer documented could have arisen out of numbers that did not even come close to domination. Remember: the contention on part of the Russian peasantry in those days was that the USSR was run by "a Jewish government" and that the state was dominated by Jews. That was the contention of the Nazi party in Germany in the late 20's too.

My basic contention is that the backlash that Shneyer cited was wholly inappropriate for the numbers that he cited. It is not an issue with him at all - the book seems impeccable from what you have described. It is merely my taking issue with the contentions of many Russians of that day.

If I were an average Russian peasant living under the horrors of Communism, I would not assume domination from numbers like 8%, 7% 14% or even 22%. But that is what they did. They never contented themselves with mentioning the accurate numbers, but decided to spin a barely believable tale that gave the impression that the Jews held the leavers of power alone. It was far from the truth and I cannot bring myself to excuse them for that contention. Had they merely described the numbers as they were, there would be no issue. Bela Kun's Hungary is what domination looks like btw.

My disputation of the Soviet opposition to antisemitism was not a contention against Shneyer's findings. Hardly. I was merely criticizing the Bolsheviks for hypocrisy. For a group that mouthed such platitudes as that, they did a great deal of damage to Russia's Jewish community - particularly the older generation. The destruction of Synagogues, the terrorizing of religious Jews, the banning of the Jewish religion - all of these measures were anti-Jewish. I think the stance of the Soviets against antisemitism was disingenuous and dishonest. It reminds me a lot of Trump insisting that he is "the least racist person you have ever seen" - BS. The communist hatred of capitalism naturally had a harsh impact on this most capitalist and finance-centered of people: The Soviet measures against financial violations and black marketing hugely impacted Jews, especially in Odessa. The Bund and Pale T'sion were banned, with many of their members imprisoned or killed.

A hypothetical comparison would be if a US government were to criminalize racism against African-Americans - but also ban hip hop music, basketball, the Black Methodist Church, and the NAACP.

Jeff_36 wrote:[My basic contention is that the backlash that Shneyer cited was wholly inappropriate for the numbers that he cited. It is not an issue with him at all - the book seems impeccable from what you have described. It is merely my taking issue with the contentions of many Russians of that day.

You will find that Shneyer agrees with you - he describes the antisemitic reactions as "irrational."

You know, my dear Colonel General, I don't really believe that the Russians will attack at all. It's all an enormous bluff. - Heinrich Himmler to Heinz Guderian, December 1944

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far.

Zehut are hardly radical. They are viewd as a religous partu simply because they are headed by Moshe Feiglin, but truth is that the party is made out of religous and non religous people, women, gays (yes, even gays) and Arabs. It's a party that wants to abolish the mandatory national service, what kind of "kahanist" would willingly give up on a chance to force people into killing arabs?

Yesh Atid and Kulanu are both socialist, especially the letter.

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far.